i5-540M vs i7-720QM

Do you think it's worth the $75 upgrade to go from i5 to i7?

 

That is dual core to quad core. Do you want less battery life?

 

What do you use your computer for?

 

Well, everything. I could have gotten away with the i5 I believe, but I went with the i7 anyway. lol

This will be a desktop replacement, so I figured, what the heck. Don't need battery life anyway.

 

Then you made a good move. Which laptop is it?

 

HP Envy 15. Was hoping for the Envy 17 but it's not released yet.

 

AFAIK the new intel quads properly gate their cores, when not need the cores are shut off (unlike the old C2Qs) and therefore battery life does not suffer...

 

Maybe in an ideal world...

Unfortunately in our world, while the mobile quad core i7's indeed use less power than C2Q's, they still use far more than a mobile C2D. And that's before we take into account the potential savings that a switchable graphics system could get by completely turning off power hungry high end GPU's.

 

I actually canceled my order for the i7 and switched to the 540M to save some cash. Should be good enough for multimedia and entertainment uses.

 

Wait at least another year for some decent quads. For now an i5 is more than enough for anybody on the go. If you really want performance get a desktop.

 

Yeah. I mainly got it for desktop replacement, but I don't really do super intensive stuff atm.

When I start doing things that max the i5 out, I'll just sell it and order something more powerful.

 

Adobe CS4 is on the low end of the "demanding" category of tasks, so the i5 will be more than enough.

A quad core i7 would be more important to someone who does truly demanding tasks like 3D rendering, CAD, or HD video encoding.

 

Yeah, I don't do that stuff right now. I've always been the type that buys the fastest computer but doesn't really use or need it. lol. This time I think I'm making the right choice.

 

There's nothing wrong with buying more computer than you need in order to satisfy your ego. That's what it means to be an enthusiast

 

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3647&p=8

Remember the TDP now includes the north bridge basically.

 

I don't think any of those laptops uses a C2D and this is an apples to oranges comparison for a variety of reasons anyway, and Jarred admits that, which is why he made this extrapolated graph in the first place. In the end, all this says is that Clarksfield uses less power than C2Q and Bloomfield.

Something like a SXPS 1640/1645/1647 battery life comparison would be much more interesting.

 

i would cancel your envy order and wait a few days for the ASUS G73... it comes with i7-720qm , 17 inch screen , Blue ray and ATI's 5870 mobile , which is the fastest mobile GPU... also has full HD screen... for only $1600... cancel the envy order ... it's not a true desktop replacement... and has too high of a price and not much performance.. the G73 comes out late in Jan is worth the wait... worth every cent..